Quintessential Riyal Politik

Saudi crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammad bin Salman’s recent interview to Fox TV was a classing exercise in strategic ambiguity, saying plenty yet leaving more questions than answers, and allowing all stakeholders to interpret it according to their own politics.

So when he said “we hope that we will reach a place, that it will ease the life of the Palestinians (and) get Israel as a player in the Middle East”, the American establishment took it as an endorsement of the Abraham Accords and a sign that Saudi recognition of Israel was very much on the table.

The Democrats are already salivating at the thought of a formal normalisation giving Joe Biden’s re-election hopes a shot in the arm.

Yet even before that he said, “For us, the Palestinian issue is very important… we need to solve that part”, confirming to occupied territories that Riyadh would demand a better deal for them, in addition to its own nuclear energy ambitions of course, before this diplomatic song and dance can move any further.

And for Tel Aviv, especially Benjamin Netanyahu struggling with outright revolt against his extremist, extreme right coalition government’s assault on the judiciary’s sovereignty, the most meaningful bit was when MbS said, “If we have a breakthrough, reaching a deal that gives the Palestinians their needs and (making) the region calm, we’ve got to work with whoever’s there”. Especially that there had been “good negotiations” so far, and “every day, we get closer”.

Now the embattled prime minister can at least begin to counter the public backlash, complete with social society and former PMs calling for his head amid a historic flight of capital from the country, with the narrative that, with the Muslim embrace, he’s making Israel more secure than at any point in its history.

But he can’t have that security without exchanging ambassadors with Saudi Arabia, and that, for all intents and purposes, will demand substantial concessions towards the so-called two-state solution.

Yet his hyper conservative coalition will fall apart the minute he concedes so much as an inch. Further disenfranchising Palestinians, mainly by gobbling up more land, is the glue that holds the far-right parties together in the administration, after all, and the main reason to clip the Supreme Court’s powers.

Why do you think the Israeli press ran reports of senior Likud party parliamentarians warning him against making any concessions regarding Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank in talks with and about the Saudis on the sidelines of the UN general assembly?

This is only one small part of the new realities of international politics that MbS is most likely leveraging as Arab states are poised to redefine the region’s political and diplomatic calculus. There could be no bigger proof of America’s rapidly decreasing footprint in the region than China getting Iran and Saudi Arabia to bury the hatchet, even de-escalate in Syria.

In fact, the arch rivals aren’t just going to work together under the BRICS umbrella, there’s also chatter of a potential multi-billion dollar Saudi investment in Iran’s oil and gas industry, nudged by Moscow and Beijing, to bind them in long-term economic interests that both hold dear.

The old Saudi-US oil-for-security deal, held since King Abdulaziz and President Roosevelt shook hands on board a US warship in the Red Sea in 1945, no longer holds as Riyadh openly partners with Moscow in Opec-plus to cut oil supplies in defiance of Washington’s pleas to reduce oil prices.

And Israel has also changed. It can no longer pretend to be the only “truly democratic and stable country” in the Middle East. Netanyahu’s attempt to hold power by stitching together the most aggressive, conservative, extremist government in the country’s history has led him to pass a controversial law limiting the Supreme Court’s ability to overturn decisions made by the cabinet.

Traditionally, the court has acted as a check on religious influence on public life and political business, Israel’s atrocities in the west bank, and policies that favour Jews over Arabs.

The move against the top court triggered the worst riots ever seen in Israel. People from across the social and political spectrum, except for the radical-right ruling alliance, have blocked roads and protested for months. As many as 10,000 military reservists have declared that they will not join their units if Netanyahu’s “judicial reforms” are confirmed.

Even the old guard of the security establishment has rebelled. In a letter made public on 31 August 2023, several prominent former officials, including two old chiefs of the powerful internal security service Shin Bet, wrote to US President Biden urging him not to meet Netanyahu because it would mean “legitimising the government coup”. They accused the PM of “causing severe damage” to Israel, especially the vital “strategic relationship” with Washington.

This crisis of confidence has triggered a feverish capital flight from the country as well. Israel’s finance ministry reported a few weeks ago that foreign investment in the last three months dropped by 60pc year-on-year. And just days ago Netanyahu addressed an empty hall at the UN general assembly as almost all heads of state and senior international diplomats chose to boycott the session.

Saudi Arabia’s oil – one-fourth of global reserves – has earned it the title “central bank of black gold” and long enabled it to punch above its weight in regional politics and global affairs.

From financing the Yom Kippur war, engineering the Opec oil embargo, supporting the Afghan mujahideen, bankrolling Yemen’s Colonel Ali Abdullah Saleh, Pakistan’s General Zia and Jordan’s Hashemite rulers all the way to arbitrating regional conflicts including the recent carnage in Syria, Saudi petrodollars have given it the financial firepower and influence to dictate war and peace far and wide – quintessential Riyal Politik.

Now it is once again taking centre stage as the region weighs the merits of going all out in the matter of recognizing Israel as a way of turning the page on seven and a half decades of conflict that got the Palestinians no closer to their dream of return.

If the chips fall in the right places, Pakistan may well get in on the action and join the debate about Israel as well, almost two decades after the Turks convinced General Musharraf to send foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri to meet his Israeli counterpart in Istanbul in a failed attempt to test the waters.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023